


How It Used to Be

by Kittycattycat



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Blood, Blood and Gore, Brief Emetophobia Ment, Emetophobia, Fights, Gen, Hatred, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Murder, Pre-Game Amami Rantaro, Pre-Game Oma Kokichi, Pre-Game Personalities (New Dangan Ronpa V3), Pre-Game Saihara Shuichi, Pre-Game Shirogane Tsumugi, Self-Hatred, Vomiting, these tags are garbage
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 03:31:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19455445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittycattycat/pseuds/Kittycattycat
Summary: Pregame V3 drabbles— tales from before the 53rd killing game.





	1. Tsumugi Shirogane

Tsumugi is a cosplayer, she's an expert, and so her wig is perfectly placed and her color palette is identical. But she adds her own flair in her own ways, as she's always tend to do. (It's why she could never really be the ‘Ultimate Cosplayer,’ her brain supplies.) Her eyes read V3 in pale blue and her face is done up with the most shimmery, reflective highlighter makeup she could find. She's Junko, a near perfect replica, but different in that her plan is designed for failure.

In the mirror, she strikes a pose— puts her fists high on her hips and lifts her chin. Widens her stance and cocks her head to one side dramatically. Finally, she opens her mouth in one loud, haughty laugh. It's not Junko’s laugh, could never really be hers. But it's damn close enough. Yes, she's an imperfect replica, but that's fine. It's exactly what she wants.

Because Tsumugi Shirogane is a queen by heart if not by blood, and Junko Enoshima’s throne could never be big enough to keep her.


	2. Kokichi Ouma

“Everyone,” Saihara tells him one night, the both of them curled up on the couch watching a rerun episode world’s favorite television show as the stars shine outside, “everyone loves a good show. An execution for all the world to see! The bigger the spectacle, the happier they'll be!” He's said as much what has to be a thousand times.

Ouma only nods, watching his friend bunch twin fistfuls of blanket into his tight grasp as he himself pretends to ignore the intense reddening of Saihara’s face and the quickening of his breath as the Ultimate Clockmaker’s blood nearly splatters against the camera lense. The cut to his throat was nearly elegant; a swift spray of blood on the ground to bring the first triple-murder in twelve seasons to its final conclusion. (Ouma hates that he remembers all the murders— but who could forget when their best friend was so violently obsessed?)

“I can't wait until I get executed like that,” Saihara says. His heart is beating hard against his ribcage, Ouma can feel the other’s pulse just from being so close. “If I kill you in the game, I want to go out perfectly, you know? The ideal execution for the first murderous Ultimate Detective!”

Ouma remembers the forms he filled out to sign his life away to Team Danganronpa, remembers how he said his goodbyes to his family as he walked out of their home for what is more than likely the last time, remembers that there are only five more days until their memories are gone and nothing will ever matter again. He feels like he's going to vomit all over the couch, and if Saihara sees how pale Ouma is turning then he certainly doesn't care.


	3. Rantaro Amami

“I'll kill you before I let you put me back,” he says as soon as a member of the Team pulls out Amami’s already-long-signed contract. 

“Save that killing intent for the next game.” The employee somehow manages to look bored, even though he's standing in a makeshift hospital room that looks like a fucking asylum ward with a large bulletproof glass pane on one wall and an emergency panic button hanging down on a string around his neck. Amami could laugh at how scared they all act around him now after he broke two other employees’ noses, but he doesn't. All his friends, the people he thought were his friends, are dead. There's nothing funny about this. Not a fucking thing.

“I'm not going to be in the next killing game.”

“You have to,” the employee says, bags dark under his eyes. Amami wonders how much Team Danganronpa lets their workers rest. “The contract is legally binding.”

Amami looks away briefly, staring at the blank wall as if contemplating something, before turning back and spitting in the other man’s face. “Fuck you.”

The employee keeps his eyes shut and wipes his face off with his sleeve as if he's done this one thousand times before with hundreds of other survivors. Given Team Danganronpa’s track record, he probably has. Amami wonders how much they'd try to sue him for if he breaks this guy’s nose, too. 

Someone raps their knuckles on the other side of the glass window. Amami bothers to look and sees Shirogane staring back at him; her face is absolutely devoid of emotion but he knows what he's being told. 

Amami kicks the employee in the ribs before anyone can intervene.


End file.
